Nitro New Reader Spreads(1)

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Finishing your Guitar

WithNitro-Cellulose Lacquer

By, Ron Kirn

N e w, R e v i s

e d E d

i t i o n


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Finishing your GuitarWithNitrocellulose Lacquer

ByRon Kirn

Everything you need to know to

Finish your guitarIn genuine nitrocellulose

lacquer

A “How To” manual

Copyright © 2008 by Ron Kirn All rights reserved

Printed in the USARevised 1/08/2008

Ron Kirn

3009 Blue Heron Dr. S.Jacksonville, FL 32223

E-Mail: [email protected]


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About this Book

There are many publications available with great instructions regardingguitar construction. The one problem I have detected in most of them

is, they assume you have a complete wood working shop with$50,000.00 worth of tools. Other assumptions are, you have a profes-

sional spray booth for painting your project, and have been applyingNitro-Cellulose Lacquer for years. This is not at all realistic for an ama-teur accumulating components waiting to assemble a professional

player’s guitar.

I offer this, so that anyone with a fundamental understanding of basicsand a “do it yourself” aptitude can build and finish a great guitar on

their back porch or in the garage.

Discussed here are my experiences as I have constructed and finished

several solid body guitars similar to those of Fender. As I’m writing this,I am constructing several more. Therefore there may be some miscella-neous ramblings occasionally as I make new discoveries. Some topics

are not discussed in detail because they are explained quite adequatelyin the web sites listed. Please check them out before writing and rag-

ging on me.

First, note that Strat® , Stratocaster® , Fender® , And Texas Specials® are all registered trademarks of Fender Musical

Instruments Corporation. The author has no affiliation with this

company.

Also:

There exists in the aftermarket, reproduction parts, made well enoughto fool all but the best appraiser. I do not recommend you constructing

a copy of existing guitars for any other purpose than your ownedification.

Constructing a counterfeit of any registered trademark product with theintent to sell, or otherwise distribute, is a violation of State and Federal

laws.

Build it, play it, fool your friends, with it, but do not sell it as an original. You don’t want any un-scheduled stays at a Federal facility with a bigugly sweaty roommate that takes a bath every couple of weeks if he

needs it or not, a roommate that is looking for a nice young dude to getvery, very friendly with. You don’t want that do you?


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4 Ron Kirn Signature Guitar


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reface

This is a new edition of the books I had previously written. Ihave combined the books discussing the application of Nitrocellu-lose lacquer and the one that introduces a great product avail-able locally in many areas that can be adapted to use as a quickfinish for those that are patience challenged. Those books were

written over a period of time beginning in the late 80’s and carry-ing through the 90’s.

Why so long. Well initially they were quite basic, black and white

and just plain info. But as they were circulated, some fell intohands of former Fender employees, and repairmen, many whoexpressed great relief at what was finally being said.

They began sending me their anecdotes, and other informationthey thought would add to the information I had comprised.Thus I rewrote, and rewrote again and again, each time addingmore of the information that had been sent to me.

Prior to including the tid-bits, I would always check and recheckthe source and secure permission before adding anything.

One elderly repair man sent me information on refinishing guitarsthat was quite well said. It was redundant too much of the infor-mation I had composed, but said differently, thus I sought hispermission to use it and such was granted.

Over time I have received several mentions that some of thecontent of my book appeared on other sites. Some of those sites

claiming exclusive ownership. This led me to write and re-rite thebooks several times to eliminate complaints, to no avail. Thus toprevent any further confusion, I have completely re-written itfrom the ground up.

Ron Kirn

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Chapter One:

WHO THE HECK AM I?


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Chapter 2

‘Sup with Nitro.


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Chapter 3

Who ya gonna call?


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Chapter 4

MAKING LOVE TO A

BEAUTIFUL BODY.


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Chapter 5

Ready to roll….


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Ch


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Chapter 6

Squirting the goop.


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shooting the paint. It doesn’t matter if you’re using spray “rattle” cans,


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shooting the paint. It doesn t matter if you re using spray rattle cans,or a compressor and spray gun.

To repeat, Spray top edged around the neck pocket and up to eachhorn, then each side, insert work handle into holder, and spray the butt,then spray one side, and flip the body so the wet side is down, and walkaway for a few minutes.

I would not put down more than 10 coats in a long day, giving it aboutan hour to dry every couple of coats.

Oh, if you are doing a color, put down the color coat, checking to becertain you have good coverage… also spray a test block, preferablesomething that the paint cannot soak into, like a piece of glass, plastic,metal, whatever.. We want to create a “worst case” scenario.

Allow the test piece to dry thoroughly. Then give it a good sloppy wet

coat of whatever you will be using for the Clear coats. This way you candetermine if there are any compatibility problems. Allow it to dry for acouple of hours to give the chemistry a chance to do whatever it’s goingto. If it’s good, you can proceed to the clear. If it has major “issues” youwill have to get creative.

If you need to get creative as I mentioned above, spray another test;allow it to dry several days. Now apply a thin clear coat, allow it to dry,and check it, if good, apply another thin coat, and check in an hour. Ifgood, do it again.

What you are doing is allowing the clear to build up, in thin coats sothat the solvent can evaporate fast enough so it doesn’t soak throughthe underlying coats. You will apply 15 – 20 coats before you put downa good wet coat. And in this situation, never apply more than 2 goodwet coats in a 24 hour period.

For those that are thinking damn.. That’s way too thick, I wanna thincoat like they did in the 50’s, consider. . .

Nitrocellulose Lacquer continues to shrink for many years. In the firstfew days it will shrink as the volatile solvents evaporate about 70%.Over the next week, it will continue to shrink another 10% give or takeand another 5 – 10% over the next month. Over the next several yearsit will continue to shrink, to a point, where a coating that was quitethick, is now very thin. Factor in that you will be removing a consider-able amount of the lacquer during the wet sanding, and you can see thefinal finish will indeed be quite thin. Much thinner that that achievedwith any of the other more contemporary finishes being used today. So,

relax…


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b i l h i i i l d 00 i hi b


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To begin, I select the initial grade paper, 400 in this case, wet about25% of the top and begin.

I use a small piece of Corian, or similar countertop material. It is excel-lent. It is impervious to the solvents, and can be leveled with ordinarysandpaper in moments. To level it, I take a piece of 220 paper place on

a clean flat surface, table saw table typically, and dress it until level.

To find scrap Corian, try any Kitchen Countertop Fabricator’s shop andask ‘em if you can dumpster dive, they throw away tons of the stuff. Itcuts with ordinary tools.

I continue using small, about a 3” diameter, swirling motion to sand thesurface level as I watch the reflection of the lights above in the bodiessurface.

Once the surface looks uniformly flat, dry the surface thoroughly andcheck by looking at the surface with something bright reflecting off it.

Here you can see the untouched areas next to the edge. Continue sand-ing until ALL the surface is uniformly matte in appearance.


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In this shot you can see the first quarter still has a bit more sanding toeliminate the remaining “low” spots.

I always try to use a block to sand, even along the edges, This producesa much flatter finish, and simply looks more “professional”


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Chapter 8


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C p

Oh, what a beautiful Sunris*Ummm. . . Sunburst.


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Identifying exactly what color we’re talking about has become a prob-lem. Differing views about what’s Amber, Butterscotch, and ButterscotchBlonde abound, so I’ll establish some parameters here.


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, p

To help understand the controversy, note that Nitrocellulose lacquerreacts to the environment, and particularly the ultraviolet light presentin sunlight. This results in the clear nitro taking on a yellowish tint over

time, gradually increasing. It is so pronounced that many Sonic BlueGuitars are plain old Lime green today, and the Olympic Whites canbecome orange. This is further aggrivated by the fact that Fender andothers used Nitrocellulose lacquers from various suppliers, not just theDupont Duco, so many are familiar with. Those different formulationswould “age” differently from the others. Nitro also comes out of the canwith a very slight amber tint, so applying it over a white color coat willturn it ever so slightly yellow.

I mention this to help those not familiar with this characteristic of Nitro

understand why there are NO absolutes for duplicating many of the 50year old colors seen on true vintage guitars.

So here’s how I see the colors:

Amber: A clear transparent finish, kind of like you were looking at thewood through a glass of good ‘ol Budweiser.

Butterscotch: like you spilled some of Starbucks finest loaded withcream on the wooden table. Not opaque, you can see the grain through

it, but with the coffee ‘n cream semitransparent milky liquid influencingthe color.


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Butterscotch Blonde: Like butterscotch, but much lighter, like the Star-bucks was mostly Cream, with a splash of coffee in it.

So to achieve Butterscotch or butterscotch blonde, you begin with am-ber. I mix amber by adding about 12 drops yellow, and 2 red of Sherwin


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Chapter 10..


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All wet and sandy……

By now you have sanded the wood, filled the grain, applied sandingsealer, sanded that, applied more sanding sealer, shot the color, metallicor whatever, did the ‘burst, and applied the clear coats. Then let ithang for a month You’re ready to wet sand So get ya some water and


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hang for a month. You re ready to wet sand. So get ya some water andsome wet or dry paper….

Why sand the body? Because as you apply the lacquer it will accumulatein an irregular series of hills and valleys. If they’re very small, you havean orange peal effect, large ones are more desirable. Wet sanding levelsthe surface to give you a flat mirror like reflection. To see the differ-ence, go to a local up scale shopping mall, take a close-up look at thefinish on a Plymouth Voyager, then the finish on a Mercedes S class, orthe finish on a Ford Focus as compared to the finish on a Porsche Car-rera. Not to put down the lesser vehicles, but there is a difference.

The only way for you to achieve those smooth mirror-like finishes is bywet sanding. So let’s do it.

Most use water, it allows the novice more control, advanced finisherswill use mineral spirits. Much faster, but be careful. I warned ya.

Take a small block of something non-porus I use small blocks of Corian(call a kitchen countertop fabricator and ask about scraps.) Small blocksof plexi-glass (plastic) work well to, whatever has a very flat surfaceabout 2 inches square.

Cut the 400 grit Sand paper in to small sections to cover the bottom ofthe sanding block, wet a small area and in small circular motions, sand


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Chapter 11


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SOMETHING

YOU’RE NOT USED

TO


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Chapter 12


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Decals and such,


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When they get hyper and start flailing their arms around,

one may get stuck in your lacquer surface, I would suggest just keep

spraying over them. It will take a few more coats, but the uniqueness of

a genuine liberal deep inside the finish of your Strat® will be an awe-


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some conversation piece.

Chapter 13


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What color is that?


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expensive with prices starting at about $80.00 a gallon and require a lot

of equally expensive stuff to mix in them.


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Chapter 14


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Nuthin’ quite like a quickie.

For those that just want something quick, I’m talking about a weektotal, and a bit better than the tung oil so many lean to when they justwant to get it done and playable, try this.

Ace hardware and Lowe’s carries a Spray rattle can of a satin nitrocellu-lose lacquer, It’s called Deft. It’s gotta be satin the glossy doesn’t sand


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as easily and requires much longer.

This product has a high content of filler therefore it dries fast, andsands very easily.

Let’s go. .

You sand your body as originally described. Then shoot a coat of theDeft Satin. It will dry on a reasonable day in about 15 minutes. Sand itagain. Now apply a second coat, repeat this in about 1 hour intervalsuntil you have about 5 coats applied. Allow it to dry over night.

The next day sand again, you might want to begin using a sandingblock much like discussed in the wet sanding chapter.

Apply coats again, but this time allow more drying time, the lumber hasbeen sealed and it will take longer to get to a point the satin can besanded. If you are seeing small pin point dimples, drop fill them as de-scribed earlier. After the drop filled areas are fully dry, about a day,sand the entire surface flat, actually a small orbital sander with 320 gritwill work great.

Now you’re entering the final stage, spray a nice wet coat, allow to dryand apply a second. If you have no flaws to deal with, let it dry andyou’re done. A really slick Satin finish, and Nitrocellulose to boot. It’sthat easy.


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